Rafael Chaves Quotations

There are decisions we have to make that we don't like a bit. This was the hardest thing I've had to do. I was his first pitching coach.

Somebody has to step up and win a job. Right now they're not trying to win a job. They're competing to lose a job. That's not what they are trying to do, but somebody has to step up and want the job.

My heart did not skip a beat. It skipped a bunch of beats.

I wish him the best. Sometimes a different scenario can help. I still think he has a good arm and he has the passion. But sometimes numbers don't allow you to do what you want to do. But he gave it his best while he was with us, and that's all we can ask for.

I blame a lot on the fact that he has not been as healthy as we would have liked (the past two seasons). Joel seems to be healthy.

He looked like he was on a mission out there. Like he had something to prove.

He did OK, but he wasn't throwing great. Still, with his successes in the past, you want to have a guy like him if you can. So we brought him in and he's throwing much better now. He's coming around.

I thought he was the pitcher he can be during those innings. He was nails after the beginning.

We don't need anybody to be a hero. We need them to be healthy. We need him to tell us when something like that comes up. You like the fact that he wants to play though pain and go out and pitch. But we'd like him to tell us about something like this.

There's no doubt that he's going to have a good year this year. Once again, we're talking about getting him healthy, him regaining his confidence, and getting him back on track and having him believe in himself.

This is very cool. It's not like I pitched in the game, but for me, it's the same thing.

I told him not to do that any more. That's why they make gloves.

It's the one pitch you can throw over the plate and you don't have to be perfect. It's a fastball, yet it moves. What can be better than that? The only concern is to get the ball down.

I want my pitchers to believe they can beat anybody. I believe they can, and that the season will show that they can.

I'm happy to see what I saw. The rest of the guys can learn from how he does it. We just couldn't finish it out at the end.

His fastball location the first two innings was not there, and that was forcing him to make too many pitches.

He's ahead of everybody else in camp and he has thrown more bullpens than anybody else. By the time he has to leave us, he'll be able to go three innings. That way he should be able to go four innings down there.

I don't want to discuss anything that has to do with Felix. I would like the medical department to discuss that with you guys.

He's making a couple of mechanical adjustments to make sure he can maintain a good delivery, which will give him a good chance to make better pitches more often. But he's getting movement on the ball and tremendous explosion on the fastball.

The mental part should be fine, as soon as we get some little things taken care of. His timing is not right.